


These Are the Days That Bind Us

by TheRechercheRambler



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dadmasters, Dream No More is the ending this fic eventually involves, Fix-It of Sorts, Found Family, Gen, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, grumpy warrior hermit and grumpy feral child are grumpy at each other, tho it starts out some time before the game's opening cutscene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29970030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRechercheRambler/pseuds/TheRechercheRambler
Summary: At the end of the end of the world, a few lonely survivors and wanderers are brought together by fate and, eventually, by choice.Part 1, Bramble: Oro's solitude is shattered by the appearance of a strange little wanderer who's bent on bothering him.
Relationships: Broken Vessel | Lost Kin & Nailmaster Oro
Comments: 16
Kudos: 48





	1. Bramble, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Oro's First Student](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28697595) by [StrawberryCoolatta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryCoolatta/pseuds/StrawberryCoolatta). 
  * Inspired by [Wherever the Road Leads](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22669879) by [IwaKitsune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IwaKitsune/pseuds/IwaKitsune). 
  * Inspired by [oak and ash and thorn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25951309) by [ruthlesslistener](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthlesslistener/pseuds/ruthlesslistener). 



Ash rained down on the desolation at the edge of the kingdom. It choked the waterways until they became acidic; it pressed down on the leaves of plants until they bent and broke and were buried; it erased any and all tracks left by bugs and beasts the day before. The ash was unrelenting and uncaring, and shaped Kingdom’s Edge into a brutal place that wiped the slate clean of any creature that dared dwell there.

Or at least, that was what Oro, one of Hallownest’s great Nailmasters, had hoped when he trekked out there, claimed an empty hut as his own, and refused to go any further. But no matter how he meditated and hunted and trained, his slate didn’t feel terribly clean. His anger- at Mato, at the Nailsage, at perfect Sheo, at… well, himself- never truly went away. It was tempered by the long, drawn-out years, but it was still there. The things he’d said weren’t unspoken. The mistakes he’d made went unfixed. And Oro remained.

At that moment Oro was returning to his home-that-never-felt-like-home, dirtied greatnail slung over one shoulder and the carcass of a great hopper dragging behind him through the ash. The hopper was dinner. And breakfast, and lunch, and dinner again, for at least another two days. Maybe three. Such was life. Alternating between great hoppers and booflies.

As his hut came into view through the ash-choked air, Oro noticed something was off. The curtains that made up the door were brushed aside, not how he’d left them. The halls in the shellstone caverns that lead to his hut were too short to let a fully-grown hopper hop its way to him, but aspids and smaller hoppers and so forth had made nuisances of themselves before. The Nailmaster let the hopper corpse fall to the ground; the freshly-fallen ash deadened the sound of the blow. He drew his nail and dashed into his hut.

Inside he didn’t see a hopper, great or otherwise. He didn’t see a primal aspid (thank Wyrm), or a stray hiveling, or some wretched Fool ransacking the place.

It was, instead, some strange scrawny squib ransacking the place.

For a moment Oro simply stood gawking in his own doorway in surprise. He’d never seen a bug like them in his life, and thanks to whatever it was the king had done in Hallownest’s final days, he’d lived a long one. The squib had their back to him as they rummaged through a cabinet, looking at some of Oro’s things, setting some aside, and pocketing others. They had a smooth, pale shell with wildly asymmetrical horns; on one side of their head two long horns protruded and curled into the air, while on the other there was merely a slightly-pointy nub. The rest of their carapace was mostly concealed by their cloak, which was at least two sizes too large for their scrawny body and pooled on the floor all around them. A battered nail sagged in its strap against their back.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Oro said.

The squib jolted in shock. Or at least, their body did- their too-long horns got caught on the inside of the cabinet and they knocked their head against it. Oro couldn’t help but laugh at the sight as they struggled to free themselves from the errant furniture. Once they finally extricated themself they raised their head up- and up- and up- to meet Oro’s gaze. They glared at him with empty black eyes without a speck of orange. At least that told him that the little thief wasn’t infected- merely feral.

“Empty your pockets, squib.” Oro said.

The feral thief nervously backed up a pace, head tilting from side to side. Probably trying to scope out an escape route. One hand slid under their cloak, feigning to retrieve what they’d taken, then went up to their back-

“Don’t even think about it.” Oro growled. The squib startled again, hand frozen halfway to their nail’s hilt. “I don’t know who you think you are, and you clearly don’t know who I am, if you’re thinking to cross blades with Nailmaster Oro. I don’t take kindly to burglary and it’s been too long since I last honed my nail against a thinking bug.”

For a moment, they simply stared at him. Then, in a single reckless movement, they hurled themselves to the side and smashed their way out of his hut through the window. Great, another thing that needed fixing. Fortunately, most of the stolen goods fell out of their cloak and clattered onto the floor at the same time.

Oro watched them race away through the ashen caverns, shrinking into the distance. They were quite a nimble one, Oro would give them that, considering their lopsided horns and too-long cloak and-

-They tripped over themselves and went tumbling over a ledge and out of view.

The Nailmaster snorted in derision and turned back to the scene of the incompetent crime.

The next day, the last few missing items appeared in a pile on the doorstep of his hut (which no longer had a window, but a still-drying wall of clay. There was no glass to be had in Kingdom’s Edge and Oro wasn’t about to let primal aspids come barging in whenever they please).

The day after that, Oro was disturbed from his meditation by a knock on his doorframe. Wonderful.

To absolutely none of his surprise, Oro swept the curtains aside and found two dark eyes staring up at him.

“So, you’re here to apologize for breaking into my hut uninvited, stealing my belongings, and vandalizing my hut.” Oro said.

The scrawny squib shuffled their feet a little.

“No? You have nothing to say for yourself? Then get lost.”

Oro turned to go back inside, but the vessel wasn’t about to leave it at that. They withdrew some thin slate slabs from their cloak, making sure to swish it loudly to keep the Nailmaster’s attention. When he was glaring back down at them, they held the first slab up. On it, they’d engraved:

_Thought hut abandoned. All other bugs infected._

Then, they held up the second slab, which read:

 _Legendary_ _Nailmaster. Teach_ _me_ _. Please._

At least they’d bothered to include a “please,” Oro supposed he had to give them that; but, he refused to. The scrawny squib stared up at him expectantly. Oro gave them an unimpressed look.

“‘Legendary?’ Hmph. I’ve no patience for empty flattery.” he said. “The law of the Nailsage says that I must pass down my teachings… to those who are worthy. You think you are _worthy_ of my training? Of my time and effort?” he asked them flatly.

They shuffled their feet a bit, then had the audacity to _nod_ , the little delinquent.

“You have done nothing besides break into my home uninvited, steal my belongings, vandalize my hut, and offer a paltry apology, if it can be called that.” Oro said contemptuously.

The delinquent had the even greater audacity to look _affronted_ , and mimed putting things into a pile. Oro snorted.

“You merely returned what was rightfully mine to begin with. It would take more than that to make up for what you’ve done, let alone prove your worth.” he said. “Get lost.”

Instead of taking his advice, the brat hunched down, turned the second slab over, and scratched something into it with one of their claws. Then, shamelessly, they held up their handiwork:

 _Sorry_.

Impressive. They were almost as bad as he was at apologizing.

Oro let out a sigh.

“I already gave you my answer to your request, and I do not see a reason to change it now.” he said. “This is the third time you’ve ignored what I’ve said. Now leave me in peace, or leave in pieces.”

It was an empty threat- this foolish bug was clearly just a dumb kid- and it seemed the brat knew it, the way they slouched away in disappointment rather than dashing away in fear. Unlike his- unlike the other Nailmasters, Oro very much did not want to get saddled with the burden of training someone, let alone a nuisance who’d tried to rob him. Even the Nailsage hadn’t had to put up with _that_.

Before he turned away to return to his meditation, Oro saw the brat pause, and raise their head, as if realizing something.

Oh no.

For a moment Oro feared that they’d try to do as he had, all those years ago, and try to show off whatever paltry, self-taught skills they could think of with their old nail. They’d just make an embarrassment of themself, although it would be amusing to see them trip over their own trailing cloak again.

Then the scrawny squib turned, eyed Oro as if sizing him up, drew their nail, and charged. Oh, fantastic, this was even worse.

He half-expected them to aim their first blow at his greatnail, so many self-trained novices did, but they mildly surprised him by actually aiming their first few strikes at his chest. He parried them almost automatically, knocking them back. They swept one foot back and caught themself before they could topple. They fell into a low stance before leaping at Oro, now trying to strike at his head. Their form was sloppier than a gutted aspid, so they clearly hadn’t been trained, but Oro guessed that they’d crossed nails with an Infected sentry at some point.

But if they’d hoped to learn something from the way Oro fought them, they were going to be sorely disappointed. Their skills were enough to take down a mindless beast or light-maddened husk, but Oro was a Nailmaster, and he’d dedicated a lifetime to earning that title. He would end this fight swiftly.

With a sweep of his nail Oro shoved them back across the cavern. They tried to fall back into something vaguely resembling a stance but stepped on the edge of their raggeed cloak and instead fell on their back.

“Get out of here. This ashen wilderness is no place for a child, and nothing else here will show you mercy as I have done.”

Without waiting to see their next foolish move, Oro swept back into his hut- and barricaded the door with a cabinet for good measure.

The vessel, however, was perfectly fine with Oro not seeing their next move, so long as they could see his. Several more days had come and gone, many of them spent just like the current one, with the vessel hiding in the shadows of a crevice and watching the Nailmaster train from a distance. As they watched Oro they wondered why he never did any training with the dead hopper he’d set up as a _training_ dummy. Their hands idly fiddled with some tiny round shell they’d swiped from his hut in spite after their second failed attempt to learn via combat.

That time, they’d started with a sneak attack, but the hulking bug was not easily caught off-guard. Must’ve been his Nailmaster instincts. Instincts the vessel very much wanted to learn. That time he’d swatted them straight into a thicket and watched them struggle to free their horns and cloak from the thorns for a few minutes. It almost made them regret molting; they’d never had so much trouble with their horns when they were still as small as all the other countless vessels. Idly, they wondered if any of their siblings had grown as they had.

The vessel shook their head to clear their head before it was clouded with memories of the the falling and the fallen. They were here to watch and learn the art of the nail, not dwell on the past they’d tried so hard to escape.

At that moment the Nailmaster paused mid-swing, his body tense. He swept his gaze across the small training ground. Had he somehow heard them? Hopefully from this distance their horns just looked like the tall pale grasses that grew out of the ash.

If Oro noticed the vessel, he didn’t say so directly. But the vessel had their suspicions as Oro sped up the pace of his training, going through the movements too quickly for the vessel to absorb what he was doing before he moved into another technique. It was frustrating, but their annoyance soon faded; although deadly, the art of the nail was beautiful to watch in its own way. The vessel found themself enraptured, their eyes following every slice even though they learned nothing from it.

Disappointment washed over them when Oro finished his training with a final dramatic dash slash and walked back to his hut. That was it? He’d gone on longer every other time they’d spied on his training.

The vessel let a few moments pass before they crept from their hiding place, pocketing the small shell (he had so many of those stored in his hut, they doubted he’d notice if just one was missing). On previous days, when the Nailmaster wasn’t training, the vessel had seen him meditate, hunt, eat, or sleep. They didn’t know which one he was starting now and they didn’t care; they’d decided it was their turn to train.

If the Nailmaster wasn’t going to train with his training dummy, well, clearly someone had to. First, just to be safe, the vessel thwacked the side of their nail as loudly as they could against the shell of the carcass, then looked back at the hut to make sure the Nailmaster wasn’t coming back to investigate. To their surprise, Oro was already standing in the entrance to the training grounds, watching them wearily.

“I wouldn’t keep doing that, if I were you. But, if you’re so keen-”

The vessel perked up. Was he finally going to agree to train them?

“-on making a fool of yourself with your flailing, then by all means, keep going.” he finished. The vessel sighed. Then, Oro added, “Not that you need to flail to look foolish, with those brambles wrapped around your horns.”

The vessel snapped upright in shock. What? They were certain they’d removed all of those yesterday!

“On the other hand, if you have any dignity you’d like to preserve, then get lost, bramble-horns.”

With that, the Nailmaster strode away, the vessel glaring daggers at him the whole while. They rounded on the training dummy in a huff. The vessel slashed at it a few more times, trying to remember what they’d seen Oro doing, but their frustration caused one of their blows to go wide. They missed the shell of the dead hopper, and instead their nail sliced through the training dummy’s cloak.

Their eyes followed the scrap of shabby fabric as it drifted to the ground.

An idea formed in the vessel’s mind. Behind their mask, their dark eyes narrowed deviously.

The big grump thought they looked foolish? Oh, they’d give him foolish.

If he cared enough about the art of the nail or whatever to refuse to teach them because of an honest mistake- how were they supposed to realize when they found the first inhabited house since… ever?- and a few other not-as-honest mistakes, then the vessel figured he’d care if he saw his precious nail arts disrespected. Their training shifted from trying their best, to trying their absolute worst.

Instead of trying to copy Oro, the vessel strove to do the opposite. They went wild with their swings, flopping their arm about in the dummy’s direction like it was an ooma tentacle and only just barely held onto their nail. Instead of striking at anything vital, they sliced more ribbons out of the training carcass’s cloak and stomped them into the ash. They slashed as they dashed, finishing with a very deliberate stumble. They dashed, waited a second, then slashed.

It was when they slashed, and _then_ dashed that they heard stomping footsteps approaching. No one could have seen it, but the vessel was grinning.

“By the blasted Wyrm’s moldy carcass, what do you think you’re doing?!” Oro demanded.

The vessel tilted their head innocently.

“You can’t truly be that stupid. I know you’ve been spying on me, brat, and I suppose the brambles tangled around your horns must also be wrapped around your brain, if that disgraceful display is all you can show for it.” the Nailmaster said, voice dripping with contempt. “Some higher being must have thrown dice and decided to give you their favor, if you haven’t yet been gutted by husks. From your stance to the way you hold your nail-”

At this, the vessel re-adjusted their grip to how they usually held their nail. The Nailmaster sighed.

“No, not like that.”

And Oro actually stomped over to them, snatched their nail from their grasp, and corrected their grip.

The vessel learned quite a lot that day. Mostly it was basic stuff- how to hold their nail, for both single-handed and two-handed strikes; a few proper stances that would make them less open to attacks, and less likely to fall over; a full rant on how to keep their nail in good condition, after Oro noticed a few chips missing from the blade; they even got a demostration of how to perform the Dash Slash technique, with explanation, no less! Extra emphasis was given on the order of dashing and slashing, which wasn’t really useful, but appreciated.

It was right after the Dash Slash demonstration that the vessel could’ve sworn they saw something click in the Nailmaster’s brain. For a moment, he was stock-still, lingering in the final stance of the technique. Then he slowly stood up to his full height, keeping his eyes locked on the vessel all the while (maintaining eye contact with your enemy throughout a duel was another useful piece of advice they’d gotten that day).

For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other in tense silence. Then, to their surprise, Oro slammed the edge of his nail against the training dummy. They tilted their head quizzically.

“Some would credit you for showing determination. I say you’re an impudent reprobate.” he growled. “And I don’t appreciate being made a fool of. You were attentive just now, so I’ll give you another chance to heed my words: Get out of here, and leave me in peace. I have no interest in taking on such a foolhardy pupil, and at any rate the life of a Nailmaster is dangerous and not for soft young bugs like yourself. I will give you a count of three to flee before I give you proof.”

The vessel shuffled backwards, keeping their eyes on him even though they didn’t really believe him. Even when they ambushed him, he’d held back so as not to injure them. Oro held their gaze for a long moment, and they saw him bite back a sigh.

“Three…”

His nail hit the training dummy again with a _thud_ , knocking up a cloud of ash.

“Two…”

 _Thud_. Was it their imagination, or was something shaking the stone above?

“One…”

 _Thud_. Dust and pebbles were definitely falling.

_Slam!_

Something massive crashed down from above. Startled, the vessel dashed out of the training area and back behind a boulder. They watched in astonishment as not one, but two behemoth beasts hopped around, somehow summoned by the corpse of their brethren. At first, both hoppers focused on Oro. Then suddenly one of them, the bigger of the two, noticed the vessel and began jumping in their direction. The vessel tensed, readying their nail as the giant bore down on them.

Oro slammed the hilt of his nail into the smaller hopper’s face, stunning it, then to the vessel’s surprise he ignored his own advice and turned his back on the beast. With a single dash slash he cleared the distance between himself and the larger hopper and sliced the monster in two, not giving it the chance to get close to the vessel’s hiding spot. He shoved half of the carcass off of his nail with his foot, then glanced over at the young bug.

But the vessel was already gone. Oro felt a twinge of what might have been guilt, but shoved it down. He’d made sure no harm came to them.

Meanwhile the vessel, unobserved, reached the front of Oro’s hut and sank to the ground behind a boulder. For all their confidence, seeing a great hopper charge at them had left them rattled and they’d bolted the moment Oro dashed in to save them. They waited impatiently for their heart to stop trying to pound its way out of their thorax and as their adrenaline wore off, irritation simmered in its place.

The grumpy bug didn’t have a clue, saying the ash-ridden land was no place for someone like them. Honestly, nowhere was the place for someone like them- whether it was their birthplace, that cruel prison of darkness they’d fled in desperation, or the free caverns above that were riddled with Infected husks that all had it out for them. The area around Oro’s hut was one of the safest places they’d ever been. Sure, the wild beasts were dangerous and persistent, and food was harder to come by than it was in the City, but Oro was sane, and he was a Nailmaster. He could kill anything that threatened them, and wasn’t a threat himself.

Probably. The vessel realized he’d be the _only_ bug they’d ever met who wasn’t a threat to them, not counting their siblings (and there was no counting all of their lost siblings). Their instincts said that the only bug not to be a threat probably just hadn’t threatened them _yet_. The vessel scoffed at their instincts.

They fished the strange shell out of their cloak and examined it, then looked at Oro’s hut, feeling up for a bit of mischief.

Perhaps, they thought, it was time to see how many of those identical little shells they could take before he noticed.

For days after that Oro saw no sign of the little thief, and dared to hope that his solitude might be secure once more. But unfortunately it was not even a week later when Oro spied the strange young bug lurking around his training area again. They were focused on imitating the Dash Slash, and surprisingly, they didn’t trip over themself once. The pale thief possessed an odd sort of grace for a gangly half-grown grub; somehow it almost looked like the long edges of their oversized cloak were swirling out of the way of their feet as they moved. To Oro’s chagrin he realized they’d taken his angry corrections to heart. Their form wasn’t exactly meticulous, but they’d already improved greatly. Not that it was hard to improve on what he’d seen.

Oro was amused to note that they resolutely ignored the hopper lure in the middle of the training area. He’d dressed the empty carapace up in a spare cloak one time to make the training grounds look a bit less ghoulish. Besides hunting, it was the best way Oro could find to get in some training against actual moving bugs, and not just going through the motions of martial forms. Of course, in making it look more like himself and his brothers, he only really succeeded in making it a different sort of ghoulish. The great hoppers it brought in weren’t as good as sparring against an actual thinking warrior would be, but those were in short supply since the Infection devastated the kingdom. The Fools up in the Colosseum hardly counted; most of them were pathetic wannabes, and the rest had their own unique kind of madness Oro wanted no part of.

The young bug was so intent on what they were doing they didn’t realize Oro was watching them for almost an hour. It felt nice to turn the tables for once. When they finally turned around and saw Oro standing there staring at them, they jumped more than their own height into the air in shock. At least Oro assumed it was shock. Their pitch-dark eyes betrayed nothing behind their empty mask, and they never made even the softest of sounds.

They didn’t bother challenging Oro to a fight that time. Once they recovered their bearings they gave him a sarcastic salute with their nail and darted away before he had the chance to say anything. This time, as they hurried off, Oro saw them leap into the air and then dash once more, as if they could push off of the air itself. Despite himself, he let out a mildly impressed “Huh.” That was quite a trick.

Didn’t they have anywhere better to be than Oro’s isolated hut at the lonely end of the world? A hideout somewhere, any family to return to? He briefly imagined them pestering him by day, and going home to drive their caretakers crazy at night. The odds of a young bug surviving alone throughout Hallownest’s downfall and long stasis with as little good sense as bramble-horns out there were about as good as a tiktik’s chances in the Colosseum in Oro’s book. Even their utter silence and that dash trick wouldn’t be enough to save them from their own mistakes over that length of time.

Oro shook his head as the odd bug vanished into the ashen distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will either be the first installment in a series of three fics, each one about a different Nailmaster & vessel duo (mostly, the one about Sheo and the Greenpath Vessel will probably include interactions with all the vessels & Dadmasters), or this is merely the first chapter of the first part of one bigger fic containing all of them.
> 
> It was tough writing Oro to be satisfactorily grumpy and brusque, but also not flat-out mean or cruel. Hopefully I walked the line well enough.
> 
> I don't yet know what my publishing schedule will be for the other chapters, but the next two BV & Oro chapters almost complete, I have chunks of the three Ghost & Mato chapters written, and the GV & Sheo (& the rest of the family reunion) chapters have a few small scenes written and the rest planned, at any rate.


	2. Bramble, Part 2

It wasn’t until another week passed that things really changed for Oro.

After the farce of a lesson he’d been tricked into giving, Oro had found himself with a depressingly large store of hopper jerky to get through. He’d been tired of hopper meat before, what with it being one of his staple foods throughout the Kingdom’s unending undeath, but after several straight weeks of the stuff as the chief ingredient for every single meal, and at least another week of it staring him in the face whenever he looked at his pantry, Oro absolutely had enough. He was reaching the point where he’d rather eat the aspids.

It was beyond time to get some boofly meat.

Booflies were not hard to hunt. Quite the opposite. They did little more than hover in the other direction when you walked up to them and stabbed them in the face. The only threat a boofly posed was to a totally unaware bug who was on the edge of a precipice if one happened to bump into them.

The only meager challenge in a boofly hunt came from the hunting grounds.

The ravine that cut a barrier between the barren caverns of Kingdom’s Edge and the formerly-civilized parts of Hallownest was an acid-drenched cesspit. Even if you somehow ignored the steaming acid (not a smart move; Oro sometimes wondered whether it would drown or dissolve a bug first, but he never planned to find out), it was the dumping-grounds for the Colosseum of Fools. You quickly learned out there how to identify the whooshing sounds that immediately preceeded a body slamming into the ground with shell-breaking force, or falling into the acid and splashing up a painful spume. The canyon was littered with rusted armor and broken weapons. The corpses themselves were devoured in time by predators, or by the acid.

Above it all hovered the booflies, blissfully oblivious.

And behind Oro lurked the stubborn little delinquent. They’d been shadowing him from a distance for most of the day. Oro hadn’t acknowledged them. If they were going to follow him into such a treacherous place, on their own head be it.

A handful of fresh bodies lay scattered around the rocks. Their brownish-purple hemolymph flowed turbidly across the rocks from gouges and splintered limbs. Where a corpse had landed close to an acid pool blood spilled off the edge and sent up a hiss of steam. It looked like a slow day for the Colosseum. Sadly, none of the booflies were drifting within stabbing range at the bottom of the ravine when he entered the area, so Oro had some climbing to do. Nothing trying, only tedious.

The young bug remained at the bottom. Their step faltered when they passed by one of the shattered gladiators. They surely saw similar sights on their strange journey to his hut, but there were some horrors that would take an age to get used to. Oro had been in Kingdom’s Edge for at least an age and a half, and did not slow. Below, his pale shadow carefully crept along the canyon floor, keeping an eye on Oro when they weren’t dealing with an aspid. As usual, they moved with uncanny silence. If he weren’t looking for them, Oro doubted he’d notice them at all.

A shadow shifted up above. Oro glanced up, and saw the growing shape of a falling armored Fool. It plummeted past him. He watched with disinterest for a moment before turning his attention back to the hunt. Below him, he heard the wet _crunch_ of the body messily crashing into the ground. He paid it no heed.

But then Oro heard, faintly, a sharp exhale. He whipped his head around, expecting to see a husk shambling from some crevice, but all he saw was the three-horned bug at the canyon floor. They were staring at the bleeding and broken corpse of the fallen Fool, which by the look of things had barely missed them. Did… did the young bug make that sound? Make _a_ sound?

Some of the Fool’s tainted hemolymph had splattered onto the young bug’s cloak and mask, staining their pale shell. Even from a distance, Oro thought he saw their body start to shake. They took one lurching step back from the body, then another, but their stare never wavered.

Oro’s stomach dropped when he realized the child was backing up toward a pool of acid.

He shouted, “Hey, kid, mind the acid-”

The pale youth teetered on the brink, and mutely stumbled into the acid. Oro moved without thinking, rushing back to the ground. By some miracle one of their flailing hands latched onto a spur of rock at the edge of the pit as they fell, and only their legs went under. Vainly they scrabbled at the slick and pitted shellstone to pull themself out, unable to find another handhold.

As their frantic grip failed Oro dashed across the ravine and managed to grab a fistful of their cloak in one hand. He yanked them bodily out of the acid and sat them down on solid ground. The shellstone fizzled and hissed as acid dripped off of their cloak and carapace. Fortunately they’d kept their upper body clear of the corrosive pool, or it would’ve filled up their spiracles and turned their insides into slurry. Oro suppressed a shudder at the thought. He had to focus on the now, not dwell on what could have been.

Oro tore a length of fabric from his cloak and handed it to the young bug to sop up some of the acid. He took care of a few territorial aspids as they dried off (taking a step back and cursing when they shook themself off). Throughout the whole ordeal the only sound the young bug made came from their shaky breathing, which was still a lot more than usual. By the end of it the rag was falling to pieces, almost completely eaten through. They flung the disintegrating threads into the pool and clutched their hand to their chest.

“I take it you’re dried as possible?” Oro said.

The young bug nodded once, but Oro didn’t let himself feel relief just yet. They were tense and hunched over, with their arms crossed and their legs half curled up to their chest. Now that they thought they were out of danger, it seemed adrenaline was wearing off and shock was setting in. Oro very much did not think about the way they’d be crying out in pain if they were any other bug. If he hadn’t seen them fall and pulled them out of the acid himself, he wouldn’t have suspected they’d just been burned.

“We’ll have to wash off any acid that remains. Otherwise it’ll linger, and sting at your joints for weeks.” Oro said. “There’s a spring by my hut. Not the fancy magical kind, but it’s fresh water. Come on.”

He moved to lift them up, but to his amazement the young bug leaned away and tried to push themself to their feet, trembling from the pain of the effort. Oro let out a frustrated huff and once again plucked them up by their cloak before they could force themself to walk on freshly-burnt feet.

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you insist on doing things like that.” he chided them as he slung them over his back. “Hold on. If you let go I won’t make another detour to go back for you.”

And that was how Oro found himself a reluctant host to an equally reluctant house guest.

While they’d rinsed the last dregs of acid off of the young bug, Oro had let them dig their claws into his cloak as it surely stung. Afterwards Oro had taken them back to his hut to properly bandage their burns. The young bug was actually cooperative throughout the whole thing. When Oro explained what he needed to do to patch them up, they went along with it without fighting him. He wasn’t complaining by any means- Wyrm knew it made life so much easier for both bugs- but he was surprised. Currently, they were propped up against the wall with pillows, their bandaged legs stretched out under a blanket and their nail clutched in their good hand, while Oro was preparing a meal for them both. Since his hunt had been interrupted the main ingredient was, unfortunately, more hopper meat.

He heard shuffling behind him. He tried to ignore it. The kid was probably just getting comfortable. Maybe he should get them more pillows later.

Then he heard a floor tile shift, and with a sigh Oro reluctantly set down the food.

“I am going to turn around, and when I do, I had better not see you trying to-”

The shuffling sped up, and was replaced by scrabbling.

Oro whipped around just in time to see the kid make a limping dash for the door. He lunged forward, blocking the way out. The kid tried to dart around him, and he stopped them with one hand and pushed them back.

“What do you think you’re doing? All you could accomplish in your sorry state is dying at the claws of hoppers and aspids once your injured body betrays you.” he scolded. “You can barely walk.”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have added that, for the young bug almost immediately made another attempt to get around Oro as if trying to prove him wrong. This time he simply picked them up and carried them, thrashing, back to the corner. What the hell were they doing? They couldn’t have done this out of spite, not with how painful their injuries must have been. They’d broken into his hut once before and showed no hesitation in lingering around Oro even when he told them to leave, but now that he needed them to stay put for their own sake they desperately wanted to get away.

“Try that again and I will put you in a headlock. I am not holding you captive; I am trying to help you, believe it or not. Do you have somewhere else to be? Do you have family or caretakers I can take you to?” Oro demanded.

The young bug shook their head. Oro sucked in a breath at that sad confirmation.

“Then what?”

The squib fidgeted, and exhaled sharply, and shifted the blanket they’d been using. When they lifted up a corner it revealed a one-piece geo. Then they pulled it back even further, and soon a small pile of geo was unveiled. They looked resolutely at the floor, and shoved the geo pile in Oro’s direction without meeting his eyes.

“Hm. I see.” Oro said. “So, you broke into my hut again, and it’s a guilty conscience that drives you to sneak away. I suppose I should not be surprised, given how we met.”

The young bug hunched over even more, and nodded, then after a moment waved their hand in a so-so gesture. They still didn’t meet Oro’s eyes. When he stooped to collect the pilfered geo, he saw them try to stop themself from flinching away from him.

Oro paused, then set the geo aside and backed up a little. He knelt down on the floor in front of the kid.

“Child. I am not going to hurt you.” he said in a tight voice.

They wrote on the slate, _All other bugs try to_.

The world had clearly not been kind to the kid. He would not expect otherwise, especially not in a brutal and lonely place as Kingdom’s Edge, but that did not mean it should be so. To lash out at them- a child, younger and weaker and far less skilled than he, and dependent on him for now for safety and shelter- for stealing some geo would be unbecoming for him as a Nailmaster, to say nothing of how detestable it would be for any bug who could still claim to possess their right mind.

It went against his nature to conceal his anger, but Oro knew the child would think it was directed at them, and not the ones who’d attacked them. He pondered what to do. If the Nailsage was there, undoubtably he’d use some clever ploy to trick them into learning what they needed to know. If Sheo was there, he’d share some grand words of wisdom to fix everything, while Mato would say something stupid that nonetheless would make them feel better. But his brothers and teacher weren’t there; he’d left them behind.

The kid was stuck with Oro.

“I hope, for their sakes, that those bugs were all husks. If not, then should I ever meet them they will taste my blade.” Oro growled. “I promise on my honor as a Nailmaster, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Not that he’d ever had much honor, and his kin would surely scoff to hear him pretend otherwise, but he meant every word of his vow.

They looked up at him.

A possibility presented itself, and Oro realized that he didn’t hate it as much as he thought he would. Somewhere out there the Great Nailsage was laughing his head off. Knowing the old fly, he’d probably sent the kid to pester Oro personally.

“What I am going to do, once you’re recovered, is have you carry out the chores I need doing around here for a while.” Oro said.

The kid tilted their head in confusion.

“Besides atoning for your repeated misdemeanors, it is proper for a pupil to shoulder some responsibilities in return for their master’s tutelage.” Oro said.

The young bug froze in shock, staring at Oro wide-eyed. They pointed a stubby claw at him, then at themself, in disbelief. Oro held back from laughing at how comical their excitement looked; he simply nodded. They nodded back rapidly, and Oro was relieved to see that their fear and tension had evaporated.

“Before you get too excited, know this: As my pupil, I expect you to _listen_ to what I say, and obey my commands when I give them. This is as much to keep you out of trouble as anything else.” Oro said. “To start with, _do not_ try to walk for at least another full day. I do not want to have to redo all of my hard work in patching you up because of your obstinacy.”

Before Oro returned to the food, he found a blank slate and handed it to the young bug. They looked at him quizzically.

“If I am to be your teacher, I ought to know the name of my pupil.” he said.

The young bug kept looking at him, then slowly glanced down at the slate. They didn’t write anything down. In fact, they looked somewhat lost. Oh, no.

“…Do you not have a name?”

Their gaze snapped up to him as if affronted, and they shook their head rapidly. Oro wasn’t convinced. He’d once called them a feral squib, but he hadn’t expected them to not have something as fundamental as a _name_. Hopefully they’d come up with one for themselves soon, or at least wouldn’t try to make him think of one.

“Well, what is it, then?”

They stared very intently at the slate before finally an idea came to them and they scratched something down. Oro received the proffered slate and read its contents.

“Seriously?” he asked.

‘Bramble’ nodded vigorously. Oro sighed from resignation, and from something a little like… guilt. He wondered what else they’d considered- brat, delinquent, squib? Was ‘bramble-horns’ really the least derogatory thing someone had ever called them by? He supposed it was better than nothing at all. It was their name, not his.

“Very well.” he said at last. “Bramble it is.”

Bramble convalesced for almost a week before Oro decided it was okay to start their lessons (and start making them sweep the ash out of the hut, and patch up cracks in the wall where the window used to be). They were nearly climbing up the walls by the end of the second day despite their burns, so the rest of their recovery was largely spent teaching them proper nail maintenance. And how to prepare their own food so they weren’t eating everything raw, or relying on Oro for all of their meals.

Once they were up and about they didn’t always stay at Oro’s hut, so the Nailmaster enjoyed a few moments of solitude here and there. Usually Bramble simply wandered in and out of the area when they were finished with a training session, driven out by wanderlust or maybe just a desire to escape their chores. Since the law of the Nailsage (and his own conscience, not that he ever admitted it to himself) forced him to offer them shelter as their teacher, they almost always came back in time to mooch a meal off of him before turning into the nest they’d set up from blankets and pillows around the hut.

Occasionally they’d stroll back in with a rock they liked the look of or a handful of geo (which was how Oro learned that they had no concept of money- before he explained it, a piece of geo was just another interesting rock to Bramble. But even after they learned, they kept bringing in odd rocks as if they expected him to be impressed. When they offered him some of the geo, he took it half-jokingly as payment for their training. If anyone else came to pester him in the future, he decided he’d charge them for it up front).

They were a surprisingly focused and attentive student when they wanted to be, if prone to fits of frustration when they couldn’t get something right as soon as they wanted to (the Nailsage was _definitely_ laughing at Oro now). It wasn’t long before Oro felt he could fill a dictionary with the different kinds of silent sass he’d picked up on. Fortunately there were always more chores that needed doing when they got too annoying.

Eventually Bramble progressed enough that Oro moved on from stances and drills and discipline- the basics of nail-wielding- to sparring and truly learning his Nail Art. It wasn’t long before Bramble decided that the best way to avoid Oro’s attacks was to simply remain above them with their high jumps, and between their own creativity and Oro’s insight developed a technique for a piercing mid-air dive. He never admitted it- such praise would only inflate their big head- but he knew that it wasn’t long before he wouldn’t have to hold back when they sparred.

And when they figured how to combine their new skills with their talent for dashing mid-jump, their aerial Dash Slash was a sight to behold.

As the weeks went by Oro learned about his peculiar pupil in bits and pieces, and their past proved to be a dark puzzle he didn’t think he truly wanted to piece together. When he first asked Bramble about their origins, his pupil went quiet- no messages scratched in slate, no fumbling signs, even their body language stilled. In the end, all he learned directly that day was that they were from a ‘dark, cruel place,’ and they’d struggled to escape from it. The angry force behind their distracted blows in the day’s sparring match spoke to their old desperation louder than any words could have.

He first wondered if they meant Deepnest, but they never alluded to any beasts or monsters. Like as not the strange young bug was from a place just as mysterious as themself. Later, Oro had picked up that Bramble barely knew their birth parents- had never even _seen_ them, but heard one of them (perhaps the darkness accounted for that). They claimed they had known- or at least understood- some speech right upon hatching, which Oro found unlikely, but it wasn’t a point worth pressing. They were abandoned very young at any rate, perhaps even immediately after hatching, if their lack of a name was any indication. They’d hatched long after Hallownest’s stasis began, as they only ever knew a harsh world of lethal husks, which largely explained how they had survived long enough to find Oro’s hut- they hadn’t lived that long to begin with.

One day, when Oro was telling them some story from his upbringing with the Nailsage, Bramble mentioned- almost off-handedly- that they’d been rejected. No, _thrown away_ was the phrase they’d used. Them, and _others_. As soon as Oro picked up on _that_ \- did they have any kin, any siblings out in the world?- they’d clammed right up. The two of them spent the rest of the day meditating. He never pressed them after that. Bramble was a true survivor, to make it to their first molt in such an unforgiving world relying only on themself. At least they could now rest assured knowing they were no longer alone.

Oro resigned himself to the fact that eventually, they’d seek shelter for the night and simply never leave. Once upon a time, that would have seemed a grim prospect indeed.

And then it all came to an end.

Another training session was coming to an end. Oro and Bramble were sparring behind the hut, the sounds of their clashing nails ringing throughout the caverns. Bramble leapt across the training area to avoid a flurry of blows from the Nailmaster, who followed them with a Dash Slash. His pupil jumped up and managed to parry the blow in mid-air, using the force of their own strike to propel themself even higher before following it up with a diving strike. They were fighting almost flawlessly, but when Oro dodged away from their strike instead of recovering as usual Bramble slammed against the floor and collapsed. It was like a third, invisible fighter had joined the fray and knocked them totally off-kilter.

Oro set his greatnail aside and knelt beside them, hoisting them up to a sitting position. They rubbed at their temples.

“What happened?” Oro asked, grabbing a slate from a stack at the side of the training ground.

If they’d tried to hide an injury from their wanderings again he was going to have them do nothing but sweep ash out of the hut for a week.

Bramble shook their head groggily. They pondered the slate for a moment before scratching out, _Heard a scream. It was_ horrible.

“Hmph. I heard nothing.” Oro said incredulously.

Bramble wrote something else on the slate. Then they scratched that out, regarded the slate again, and exhaled sharply before trying again. They handed the slate to Oro and rested their head in one hand while they stared out across the training ground.

 _Almost like I felt it and not just heard it,_ _some kind of magic?_ they’d written. _Want to help them._

Oro frowned the slate, and then at his pupil. As a cover for an injury or a mistake, “I heard someone scream in a magical vision” was as pathetic and threadbare as it got. On the other hand, if it really was some kind of magic, there was nothing Oro could do in such a situation.

“Can you stand?” he asked suspiciously.

Bramble exhaled as loudly and longly as they could; it was their way of sighing in exasperation. They snatched the slate back and practically leapt upright. Then they stood on one foot for as they wrote on the slate, _Not dizzy, balance is fine, not a concussion, I want to find them_.

“And who, pray tell, is ‘them?’” Oro asked.

Bramble hesitated, then shrugged, their demeanor conveying that the identity of the supposed screamer didn’t to them. The Nailmaster gave his student a flat look.

“A random bug screams from Wyrm-knows-where, loudly enough that you can hear them, yet I somehow do not, and from this one scream you deduce that this bug could use the help a foolish youth they’ve never met.” he said dryly.

Bramble rolled their shell in what amounted to a full-head eyeroll.

“This is a dangerous place. Assuming you heard anything, and assuming it was a person screaming, and not just a diving belfly, whoever it was is likely dead by now.” Oro said matter-of-factly. “We live below the Colosseum of Fools. Like as not you heard a gladiator’s final cry, somehow echoing down to this cavern. Which you somehow heard while I did not.”

Bramble shook their head, dismissing the implication that they were just hearing things. They began pacing around the training area, heatedly writing, erasing, and re-writing on the slate.

“Bramble, there’s nothing you can do here.” Oro said in exasperation.

 _Want to at least CHECK_ , came their stubborn response.

A grim laugh escaped Oro before he could help it, earning him a glare from his pupil.

“Then you’re going to end up searching for a long time.” he said. “There’s nothing in this place worth finding.”

Bramble shrugged defiantly. _Fine!_ , they wrote.

The two of them returned to the hut afterwards in somewhat tense silence, Bramble to check on the repairs to the wall and Oro to feign meditation as he watched them for signs of injury. He still wasn’t convinced they didn’t have a concussion, but aside from distracted glances at the door, they were clear-headed and sure-footed. Once they were done with their tasks for the day they examined and oiled their nail as quickly as possible. They wrote something down on a small slate, then set it on a table before heading for the door.

“So, you still insist that you heard a scream?” Oro said.

Bramble nodded sharply. They picked up another slate and wrote, _They’re suffering. I’m going to find them._ _Someone_ _has to care about them_. Oro glowered at the underlined word, then turned his gaze upwards to his pupil.

“Excuse me for not rushing off to save some Fool I’ve never met who, since this hour passed, has probably died, if they even exist at all.” the Nailmater growled.

Bramble snorted in irritation and swiped at the jar of oil on the table, knocking it onto the rag they’d used to clean their nail. Thankfully it was sealed and didn’t spill, but at Oro’s glare they righted it before stomping off. Oro shook his head and went back to his faux-meditation.

“When you come back late because you didn’t find anything, you’re preparing your own food.” Oro warned.

They waved a hand dismissively as they headed out the door, and away they went to chase their foolishness.

When Oro checked the small slate they’d left later, all he saw was the outline of a strange, horned mask.

Bramble didn’t return that night. Oro told himself they were still stubbornly searching for whatever it was they thought they heard, but they’d come back when they got hungry.

They didn’t return the next day. Oro told himself they were staying away out of pride, unwilling to admit that they’d only heard a dying Fool, and waited.

His pupil missed training as days slipped by into weeks. Oro told himself that Bramble had somehow survived before meeting him, and with his training they were better equipped than ever to survive on their own. Maybe they’d found someone else after all.

He saw no signs of the young bug when he next went hunting. Oro told himself he wasn’t looking for signs of them anyway; they were probably ransacking some abandoned apartment in the City of Tears by then, as they had once ransacked his hut.

And when the ashfalls covered up his own tracks from that hunt he knew it was too late to look for any signs. They were gone. Oro numbly told himself he would have to accept that; there was nothing else he could do.

And meanwhile, far from Kingdom’s Edge, a small knight came out of the mindless wastelands and entered Hallownest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, there's still another Oro & Bramble-centric chapter coming up! It's mostly finished, just have to hammer out its final scene. Hopefully it won't be as difficult as this one was (the last two sections underwent like four total overhauls. Originally, Bramble was much more insistent on going NOW, and Oro was much more resistant to the idea that they'd heard anything, and it end up feeling like I was sort of writing them both to be as argumentative & unreasonable as possible so they would have a sort of falling out where Oro called Bramble foolish, and Bramble called Oro selfish/uncaring, and Bramble stormed off in an angry huff after rejecting Oro's attempts to keep them from rushing off into possible danger. But I made myself cry while writing it and decided to go for a more palatable kind of angst).
> 
> (EDIT: Went and made them slightly pricklier in the ending scene. I think ultimately it will serve the story a little better this way, and I wrote chapter 3 before this scene already envisioning them splitting up on at least slightly bad terms, so I tried to make it at least into teenage rebelliousness meets communication problems meets Oro dismissing their weird magic vision more than he should have)
> 
> Also, I hope it came across, but what Bramble heard was Hollow crying out in the cutscene we see at the very beginning of the game. They were a bit short on the details in their explanation to Oro because, well, they've never had a random magical vision of someone who might be their sibling before, they don't quite know what's going on either.
> 
> As for the section about Bramble's backstory, I based it on my own headcanons so I thought I'd explain a bit more of that here. I think that when the Pale King chose his vessel and sealed the Abyss, the vessels left alive inside fell into their own kind of stasis or slumber. Eventually, something disturbed the walls of Abyss, creating passages out (such as the one presumably leading to the Nosk den); for now I'm envisioning that the gargantuan Lifeblood entity broke part of the rock incidentally as it roamed throughout the darkness, disrupting the seal and allowing Ghost and Bramble and all the rest to wake up and try to escape. This is why Bramble, despite hatching well before Hallownest truly fell, only has memories dating back a little more than a decade. In body and memory, they're still an adolescent.


	3. Bramble, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Ancient Basin, Ghost makes a horrifying yet wonderful discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for minor bug gore/description of bug wounds.
> 
> Also, I went back and made some tweaks to the ending of the last chapter, which isn't necessary reading for this chapter but might help set the tone a little better.

There was wind that wailed at the bottom of the world, that keened and moaned and whipped at Ghost’s cloak as they blow through the eerie passages of the Ancient Basin. Those are the sounds that they would make, Ghost thought, if only they could make them; the sounds of a confused, unnatural lament. If only they could shriek and howl and voice all of the strange grief they felt…

But all they could do was hold the broken vessel’s (wait- vessel? Where did that word come from? Vessel for _what_?) hand as their body shuddered for the final time and went limp like an unstrung puppet. Ghost cut those strings. They wished desperately they hadn’t had to cut out the stranger’s life in the process.

They’d cut down so many husks animated by the Infection. Why did this one make them feel like they’d cut out a part of themself?

They had never met this bug who shared their face, but when the dying stranger reached out for Ghost with their last scrap of energy nothing could have felt more wrong than to not reach back. They are- were- bigger than Ghost, with a longer cloak and longer horns; were they an adult? Or were they still a- were they still around Ghost’s age?

Ghost wondered who this bug was; whether they, too, were called to Hallownest in dreams, or if they’d lived in the kingdom all along. Were they from Greenpath, where Ghost saw another wanderer who looked like them, barely bigger than Ghost themself? Had they lived in the City of Tears, just above?

Something stirred in the dusty corners of their mind, like a Fool’s corpse twitching and gasping for life from under a shroud of suffocating ash in Kingdom’s Edge. Ghost had no memories of their origins, just some lonely years in the wastelands, learning how to survive half by luck and half by experience. They never saw another bug like them until they came to Hallownest. The grief they were feeling… it must have been because this bug was their species. Surely. The way so many of the wandering husks above all resembled each other. It didn’t mean their connection was any closer. It didn’t make them…

Who was this bug?

Had Ghost met them?

Had Ghost _know_ _n_ them?

When the _something_ in the back of their mind coalesceed into a single word, and _sibling_ brushed against the front of their thoughts, Ghost did not let themself acknowledge it. They couldn’t. They simply couldn’t. It was not a wholly conscious choice on Ghost’s part, but their mind reflexively defending itself against looking at the shell of a lonely bug who died in agony and thinking of it with a title as dear as- it would have been too much.

Their goal was to discover why the anguished knight from their visions called them to Hallownest. They would get no more answers there.

Finally, with trembling hands, Ghost released the broken body. The stranger’s head lolled, its too-empty gaze turned away from them. Ghost moved onwards, deeper into the basin, deeper into the wailing winds.

But it was not long before suddenly, the wailing winds went still. Their mourning sounds were silenced and the world seemed to be holding its breath. Ghost’s emotions churned against their self-control like waves against a levee, and churned all the more loudly now that the uncanny gales could no longer distract their mind. Trepidation mounted as they turned back to face the corridor they came from. They walked mechanically, almost in a daze, their only respite coming from the newfound joy of flight with their wings of soul, but even that was made bittersweet by what came before.

The broken vessel (why a _vessel_? Vessel for _what_? Where did that word come from, why did it feel correct?) still lied where it fell, to Ghost’s surprisingly strong relief. If they’d returned to see the Infection’s cysts desecrating the corpse for another traumatic assault, they would’ve lost it.

Ghost wanted to linger by the stranger’s side. Ghost wanted to keep going and leave the unexpected grief behind.

Ghost jolted straight up into the air when they saw the stranger’s hand twitch, and a shockingly powerful surge of anger swept over them as they stare at the broken shell. No, not again! Couldn’t the wanderer just _rest_ , after suffering so much?

But- there was no burning light in their eyes this time, no orange pus oozing from their wounds, no lightseeds scuttering to dig into their carapace, no sickly stench of rot. Just a hand trying desperately to reach just a little farther, to reach Ghost.

In an instant Ghost was by their lost kin’s side. They fretted for a moment, staring uselessly down at their sibling, because they’d never had to take care of anyone else before, let alone someone far enough along the path of dying that Ghost mistook them for already dead. What should they do, what should they do, think thinkthinkthink-

Handling their sibling as carefully as if they were a delicate flower, Ghost took their sibling’s hand in their own, then wrapped it around the hilt of Ghost’s nail. They lightly tapped the point against their own shell, then again with more force, and then again, until finally they felt a little drained and thought they could see the white shine of soul flow into their sibling.

And nothing happened.

What went wrong? Did their sibling need more soul? Or- or were they not aware enough to properly focus?

They had to get their sibling out of that lonely place. The only ways out of the Ancient Basin were through the tram, or across the broken bridge and up the old servants’ way, but could they really carry their bigger sibling all the way up there while fending off enemies? Or maybe Cornifer was still around, hiding in a little nook in the wall; he might be able to help their sibling, and his mapping spot should be safe enough. Cornifer it was.

They still had to carry their sibling across a long, spike-lined corridor, of course, but between that and staring uselessly until they really died, there was no real choice. Ghost hoisted up their sibling awkwardly in their arms, their head lolling to a rest on Ghost’s small shoulder. To Ghost’s great relief they felt their sibling’s hands weakly grasp at Ghost’s cloak.

Thus began the grueling ordeal of bearing their sibling up from the depths of the Ancient Basin. Ghost’s newfound wings were a tremendous boon in most respects, helping them in lifting their sibling up high steps without letting their battered body drag on the ground, but Ghost’s inexperience in flying coupled with the need to absolutely not let their sibling hit the ground with any kind of force made the relatively short trek to the spiked corridor an absolute nightmare. Even the lightest landing jostled their sibling in Ghost’s arms, and eventually broke their weak grip on Ghost’s cloak entirely.

Then there was the spiked corridor itself.

Upon reaching the stone platform that jutted out above the bristling floor Ghost set their sibling down as gently as possible. Ghost unstrapped their sibling’s nail from their back, and secured it beside their own pure nail. Then, with some awkward maneuvering, Ghost managed to strap their sibling to their back, holding their arms around Ghost’s neck, and prepared to crystal dash.

It took only a few seconds to cross the sea of spikes, but it felt like an eternity. Ghost was so worried about slamming into the wall- with enough force to likely kill their sibling outright- that they nearly stopped their dash while still over the deadly floor. Finally, once their feet were on the ground, they detached themself from their sibling and settled the larger vessel down to rest for a moment on the bench. Ghost always felt better after resting on a bench.

They sat down on the dusty ground and tried to focus themself with the familiar routine of filling in their map. It didn’t really help. Ghost’s hand wasn’t exactly shaking, but neither was it as steady as usual. They kept glancing up from their work to check on their sibling, as if worried that the larger vessel (again, why a _vessel_? …was Ghost a vessel?) would evaporate into thin air if Ghost took their eyes off of them for more than a second.

Their sibling never even twitched, though a few motes of darkness trickled out of the cracks that spiderwebbed their shell. Figured. Ghost knew nothing about their family but based on themself, the stillness tracked.

Ghost let out an absolutely silent sigh as they stood up and folded their still-incomplete map of Ancient Basin. They tied the stray edges of their sibling’s cloak into a small bow, so it wouldn’t trip them up, and hefted up their sibling with all the care they could muster. They leapt over more gaps, wondering if someday they’d be able to truly fly and not just hop-flap, and wishing they already could if only to carry their sibling to safety more smoothly.

They did not stumble when they reached the far side of the Ancient Basin and heard the total silence that was the absence of Cornifer’s humming. That wasn’t good.

Ghost’s eyes darted around the gloomy cavern, and caught on a pale signpost emblazoned with the Hallownest seal. Hopefully the sign meant buildings, and buildings meant there was probably at least one bench, and maybe supplies they could raid. As they leapt and flapped up onto the platform above the sign, a part of them hoped that maybe Cornifer had gone that way.

The platform lead into a vast, still cavern that was dark and gloomy despite the best efforts of the lumaflies trapped within tall lampposts. A long metal bridge stretched across a black pit from Ghost’s platform to an empty, ruinous expanse. The cavern was utterly silent; Ghost strained to listen but not even the quiet chittering of a crawling shadow creeper could be heard. They knew not what lay ahead of them, but the unknown, for once, held no signs of danger. Ghost kept walking with their injured sibling, the soft pattering of their footsteps the only sound to break the shadow-draped stillness.

Maybe this was the old palace grounds Lemm spoke about? All that remained to show anything built by bugs once stood there on the cracked and jagged stone was a high, pale doorframe, stained with darkness. A jumbled suit of white armor rested against the door. It, too, literally leaked shadow.

Ghost had no time for such curiosities. They were much more preoccupied with the darkness that continuously seeped from the cracks in their sibling’s shell.

The little knight reached the far side of the cavern and still did not stop. They shifted their sibling on their shoulder and struck the cracked and crumbling wall with their nail, breaking into a smaller, brighter chamber. For the first time since they’d entered the eerie Ancient Basin, Ghost’s spirits lifted.

In searching for Cornifer, they’d found something even better- a stag station.

Ghost gently laid their sibling down on the station’s bench. They wished they could somehow cushion their broken head, but the softest things in Ghost’s inventory were scraps of stiff paper and rancid eggs- not things that belonged anywhere near wounds.

They dashed to the bell and struck it forcefully with their nail, shattering the antique silence with its imploring peals. Once, twice, thrice- Ghost did not stop making the bell echo and re-echo throughout the darkness until they could feel the ground tremble with the oncoming Stag’s pounding footsteps.

“Little one, are you alright?” the Last Stag asked.

Ghost pointed across the station with their nail. The Stag swung his head to look, and jerked it back in surprise when he saw the broken body.

“Oh my!” he rumbled. He swung his head back to Ghost. “I do not think it would be safe for me to carry them in such a state, but if there is anywhere you need to go, or someone you need to fetch, I can take you to them.”

The Stag looked back at the sibling. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and let out a huff.

“Or… if there is somewhere that blasted tram could reach… I can watch over them for you.”

Ghost nodded once. They decided they did not want their sibling to be left alone, in case that, while Ghost was away… Ghost swatted the thought from their mind, and activated the crystal heart. No time for dwelling on morbid thinking. They had to focus.

A place to go, someone to fetch; what was close enough? They turned the questions over in their mind as they shot past the wasteland that once held Hallownest’s crown jewel. It had to be close, for one thing, and it had to absolutely be there- they didn’t want to pin their hopes on someone who could already be gone, like Cornifer turned out to be. Nothing in Deepnest came to mind; but the tram also lead to Kingdom’s Edge-

Behind their mask, Ghost’s eyes widened.

Nailmaster Oro!

Ash rained down on Kingdom’s Edge, smothering whatever liveliness the place might have had and obliterating all traces of what had already laid down and died. Faceless corpses dropped down like the region’s own grotesque weather and were erased in waiting pools of ash-saturated acid. The ash was unrelenting, and it was uncaring, the same as everything else in the miserable desolation at the outskirts of a miserable, ruined kingdom.

Oro sat hunched in his isolated hut, deep in meditation. Meditating was one way to clear one’s head, so one wasn’t haunted by thoughts about breaking promises and harsh words that couldn’t be taken back, about ignoring things that shouldn’t be ignored, about abandonment, about people you used to care about- no, still cared about- but were likely to never see again.

At some point in his meditating Oro became aware of a strange, distant sound, completely distinct from the ground-shaking slams of the giant hoppers’ heavy landings and the high buzzing of primal aspids. It was more like a rushing or surging sound, and as its presence registered in his mind it steadily gained in volume. Something was heading toward his hut, and Wyrm, it was coming up fast.

The loud rushing noise came to an abrupt end as its source slammed into the lintel of Oro’s door, shaking the entire hut. Oro leapt to his feet, greatnail already in hand. He pushed aside his door-curtain just in time to see the pale shape of his smaller pupil slide down to the ground in an undignified heap.

The puny grub had shown up less than a month after… after. They were a quick study, and generally heeded Oro’s every word, and mostly left him to his solitude as he wanted, but. They were strange and quiet in completely unique (wrong) ways, persistent but not obstinate, and to top it all off they seemed to favor _Mato_ over Oro or even Sheo for some unfathomable reasons. They never felt like _his_ pupil; even the flower in its vase did little to change that. But the Nailsage’s law dictated he treat them as such. The Nailsage, who had seen fit to give the little one the mark of a Nailmaster. How quickly they’d earned the old fly’s love.

As his smaller pupil surged to their feet, he realized that dark motes of… something were pouring out from the eyeholes of their shell, rising into the air and quickly evaporating. Was the stoic little bug crying?

The not-so-stoic grub immediately lurched forward and latched onto Oro’s free hand with both of their own, and began tugging him down the passage that lead toward the acid pits. He was so stunned by his smaller pupil’s sudden, panicked actions- which constituted the most emotion he’d ever seen from them, _period_ \- that he actually let himself be pulled out the door before he came to his senses and held fast. His smaller pupil’s head snapped around to stare at him with their big, dark eyes. Oro was not swayed.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, trying not to let their aberrant behavior rattle him. “If you’ve come off badly in a duel, I won’t budge. Don’t think that a pupil can beg their master to fight their battles for them.”

The little bug shook their head frantically.

“Well, what then? I don’t take kindly to being accosted in my own home and dragged away to who-knows-where.” he demanded.

They stared at him for a moment more, before withdrawing their map and a quill from beneath their cloak. They slammed the parchment map-down on the ashen ground and began furiously scribbling.

When they held up the paper, Oro was just as confused as before, if not moreso. The first thing that caught his eye was a pair of masks just like his own.

“Are those meant to be my brothers?” he asked, taking the map from the little bug and squinting at the hurried drawings.

His smaller pupil nodded frantically, pointing to the scribbled Mato and Sheo and then back at Oro. Then without warning they snatched the map back. Oro barely reacted fast enough to release his hold before the parchment ripped, and watched in deeper confusion another round of frantic scribbling.

When the little bug held up the map again Oro’s breath hitched.

He knew that mask. That was his first pupil, _his_ pupil, he was sure of it; even if their third and smallest horn was absent from the crude doodle.

That was _Bramble_.

His second pupil had seen them, _recently_.

Bramble’s mask was drawn below Mato and Sheo, and right next to an approximation of his smaller pupil’s shell. From the corner of his eye Oro saw the little bug pointed to Mato and Sheo and back to Oro once more, then pointed to Bramble and at themself. But Oro’s gaze was fixed on the two words scrawled out below the drawing of Bramble.

_Help_. _Please_.

“They. They are your sibling?” Oro said, voice tight.

His smaller pupil nodded so quickly he half-expected their head to fly off their small shoulders.

“Are they alive?”

Oro’s heart plunged when his smaller pupil didn’t respond right away, then skipped a beat when they nodded. Their bizarre black tears flowed in abundance, and they lunged for his hand once more.

“Hold on, kid-” Their body stiffened, and they stared at him with an empty mask that somehow expressed betrayal. “I’m not abandoning your sibling, but I can’t do anything for them if I lack the proper supplies.”

His smaller pupil hovered anxiously nearby while he bundled up bandages, antiseptic, shell paste, a small flask of precious lifeblood- anything he could conceivably carry to wherever it was Bramble ran off to.

“Right, let’s go.”

The little bug lead Oro past the hoppers and aspids, past the hissing acid and plummeting corpses. Then, rather than upwards to the City of Tears as Oro expected, their path plunged downwards, past the Hive and onwards still, to an old tram station Oro had completely forgotten existed. The dust in the decrepit station was kicked up in a way that told him that despite the Hallownest’s general decay, the tram was still functional. Oro half-expected his smaller pupil to break the tram door’s open but instead they pulled out an honest-to-Wyrm tram pass and swiped it in the tram kiosk like this whole venture was nothing more than a godsforsaken _commute_. Sure, why not? His mind was too preoccupied with Bramble’s state to be surprised for more than a second or two.

The dilapidated tram rattled down its track. Where was his first pupil, anyway, if they had to take a tram to get there in ti- to get there quickly? Oro aggressively tamped down on the insidious fears telling him that between the time it took his smaller pupil to fetch him and the time it took for him to get there, Bramble might- Bramble’s condition could deteriorate. Those worries would do nothing to help him or his pupils while he was stuck on a tram going at a fixed speed.

The tram was still skidding to a stop when Oro and his smaller pupil burst out, into a dark cavern that was as thick with regular old dust as Kingdom’s Edge was with ash. A signpost nearby told him that they were on the old path to the Palace of the Pale King. Oro was both amazed and unsurprised at how Bramble had evidently gotten themself into trouble in one of the most out-of-the-way and mysterious corners of the kingdom. He followed his smaller pupil down into utterly unfamiliar caverns, realizing it had been a long time since he’d blindly put his trust in someone like this. The strange grub could be leading him into a den of nosks for all he knew, yet Oro didn’t slow his pace, not with Bramble’s life on the line. He barely even noticed that while they were on the famed palace grounds, the entire palace was _missing_.

Hemolymph pounded in Oro’s hearing as he followed his smaller pupil into the stag station. Dread and fearful hope boiled up within him so thickly he felt as if he might choke on them.

“Ah, little one! You’re back!” came a relieved voice. “And quite quickly, too; I suppose that wretched machine is good for _something_.”

Oro realized there was an actual, living _stag_ in the stag station. Another surprise to be duly ignored. He didn’t even acknowledge the giant bug with a nod as strode past them; his world had just narrowed to the still form lying limp on the bench. His pupil. Bramble.

Oro breathed in sharply as he took in their injuries.

There was a hole in their head.

Their smallest horn was just _gone_ , and there was a _hole in their head_. In the lost horn’s place was a jagged stump and chitin shards surrounding a gaping black hole where something must have perforated their carapace. By some miracle, Oro could see there were already inky, viscous clots forming within the wound that would eventually harden into a protective scar- if Bramble lived long enough. They were so still… Oro had to look closely to catch the slight movement caused by their light, pained breathing.

“I’m here.” Oro muttered, laying out his first-aid supplies. Then he said, “Child. Bring your lantern over here.”

His smaller pupil obediently dashed over and held their lumafly lantern up over Bramble’s shell. He took it from them and hooked its handle on the bench’s decorative filigree. The smaller bug stared at him questioningly as Oro carefully examined the wound. He lightly put a hand on Bramble’s shoulder, and felt them stir.

_Wyrm, they must be in agony._

“There’s shards of their shell still in the wound. They need to be removed before I bandage it up or they’ll lacerate the wound from the inside later on.” Oro explained. He poured antiseptic onto a bandage and wiped it vigorously over his claws to sterilize them. Not ideal, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. “I need you to hold them still while I get them out. If they thrash around while I’m doing this they’ll just worsen their injuries.”

His smaller pupil stared at him a moment more, then walked around him to stand at their sibling’s side. Slowly, carefully, they leaned over and draped their arms and whole upper body over Bramble’s chest, then looked back at Oro. He gave them a nod, then took a deep breath, cradled Bramble’s head in the crook of his left arm, and began extracting the stark, pale shards from their clotting black hemolymph.

It was slow and stressful going. The room was silent as he worked, his smaller pupil and the old Stag watching on worriedly. Bramble weakly flinched and writhed when he removed the fragments most deeply embedded in the wound and Oro felt something within him twinge at the sight. Maybe the procedure would have been faster if he’d had his smaller pupil do it, with their smaller and more dexterous hands, but he thought of how they’d trembled when they begged him for help and knew that would be the wrong call.

“Just a little more, Bramble.” he murmured, ignorant of how his smaller pupil’s gaze snapped to him from their sibling. Then, finally, he added, “I’m sorry.”

By the end of it there was a small pile of sharp porcelain shards lying beside the bench. Though the shards initially dripped with darkness as he removed them, they were now pristine; Bramble’s bizarre hemolymph had evaporated into the dreary air instead of puddling on the ground. Some of them looked like they’d been clawed and splintered from the _inside_ , and the idea made Oro’s stomach clench. He found that he wanted to hunt down whoever had done this to Bramble and gut them like a hopper, though rationally he knew that was foolish; like as not it was a mindless beast or Infected husk that caught them off-guard, not torture with intent behind it.

Oro took the vial of Lifeblood from his pack, and let a small trickle pour out onto the wound. The vial had lasted him throughout Hallownest’s stasis; the royal taboo on the substance hadn’t stopped the superstitious and the pragmatic alike from doing what they could to get their hands on it. Lifeblood didn’t truly possess healing properties, but it did have powerful _protective_ properties; it could give a mortally wounded bug just enough life energy (or whatever it was, Oro never paid attention to magical things when he was young) to hold on while their body healed. When Oro turned away to prepare the bandages the Stag let out a deep, relieved sigh, but the Nailmaster remained tense. There was more yet to do and Bramble was still on death’s door. Fortunately, his strange, scrappy student clung to life in the same way they approached making Oro teach them: with determination and a hefty dose of stubborn spite.

The wound was too wide and jagged and deep for Oro to apply shell paste, so he skipped to dousing bandages and dressings in antiseptic and binding it up. A small sigh escaped him as he wound the bandages over the shattered stump where their third horn had been. What happened to the poor kid? A few thin scrapes on their shell- clearly made by a nail, and very fresh- made him glance at the coiled nail strapped to his smaller pupil’s back, stained with dull and drying orange and something else, far darker. But there was no burning light in Bramble’s eyes, and not a trace of Infection in the wound. Another mystery he could ponder when his child wasn’t dying.

His smaller pupil sat down beside him and reached up to hold Bramble’s hand, and watched Oro as he worked on the rest of their sibling’s injuries. There were more breaks and cracks on their pale shell and dark carapace that he smeared with shell paste and bandaged, and some nicks and scrapes that only needed the antiseptic and paste. Some looked like they’d come from the claws of some giant beast, while others clearly came from nails of various sizes. All spoke to a series of brutal events.

Oro wondered not for the first or last time why they’d felt the need to run away so suddenly. But this time, he knew for certain that he’d have the chance to ask them himself. He finally sat back and let himself breathe out.

A small hand tugged at his cloak. Oro looked down into the dark, deceptively blank face of his smaller pupil, and it occurred to him that he should probably ask them their name if he was going to be stuck taking care of their bigger sibling for gods-only-knew how long. They’d probably wander into his hut uninvited even more frequently in the future.

“What?” he said.

The little bug pointed at the tears in Bramble’s cloak. Most were recent slashes that spoke of claws and nails, but some were irregular burn holes dating back to their dunk in the acid pit.

“That’s their cloak.” Oro said flatly.

His smaller pupil shook their head and went back to staring at him. Their cloak… swished, for lack of a better word, despite the still air of the room.

Oro heaved an exasperated sigh. So, these weird bugs’ cloaks weren’t cloaks, but strange vestigial wings. Or something like that; their texture was somewhere between wings and leaves. He’d had his suspicions before, with the odd way Bramble’s cloak had moved around them as they practiced the Dash Slash, but this confirmation was consternating.

“I don’t have a needle and thread on me.” he said. His smaller pupil’s head dipped ever-so-slightly. “I’ll keep an eye on it. I won’t let it rot.” The little bug nodded, and went back to staring at their sibling.

What an odd family.

“How are they?” the old Stag asked softly, startling master and pupil, who’d been too engrossed watching Bramble to remember he was still there.

“Their condition is stable. I’ve done all that I can right now.” Oro said simply.

“Is there anything else you need?” the Stag asked.

Before Oro could get a word out, his smaller pupil’s head snapped up to look at the Stag. They dashed to the large bug’s side, looked at the map of stag stations on the wall, and pointed. The Stag nodded, the little bug hopped on his back, and away they went.

Oro glanced at the lumafly lantern still hooked onto the bench. At least he could be fairly certain the little brat would be back. But until then, it was just him and Bramble. For a long while he simply sat beside them in silence, letting it slowly sink in that they were really there, alive.

“I, I looked for you.” Oro said quietly. “I tried telling myself I wasn’t, but when you didn’t come back I tried to find you. If that means anything. You probably can’t even hear me.”

He sighed.

“That smaller sibling of yours, are they the one you sought? Or did they hear the same call?”

There was an odd similarity between the shell of his smaller pupil, and the mysterious mask Bramble drew as their final message to Oro before they left. He felt like he’d seen that mask before, before Hallownest fell into chaos and then into ruin, though he could not place where. When Bramble was finally conscious again (and perhaps more crucially, _coherent_ ) he would have to ask them what it was supposed to signify.

Oro was contemplating what would be the best route for carrying Bramble back to his hut, and wondering how he’d be supposed to keep them from starving or dying of thirst if they don’t wake up in a day or so, when he heard the rumbling of the Stag racing back into the station.

His smaller pupil hopped down off the Stag’s back with a small pot clutched in their hands (well, small by Oro’s standards, it was almost the size of the squib’s head). Its unseen contents sloshed loudly as they landed, and they stared down at the pot for a moment as if they could will whatever liquid was inside not to spill. They trotted over to the bench and proudly showed Oro the bucketful of hot spring water they’d acquired. With how quickly they’d gone out and back again it might even still be hot.

Well, that could help speed things up. Oro took the bucket in one hand, carefully propped up Bramble against his arm, and poured much of the the glowing water onto the bandages covering their head, watching it seep through them and, hopefully, down onto their wound. He didn’t want to waste the water, but he supposed if he ran out he could always send his smaller pupil out to fetch more. It wouldn’t heal Bramble’s injuries instantly as some superstitious bugs thought, but it would certainly speed things up and hopefully help them recover enough that they wouldn’t be harmed when they inevitably got jostled when he took them home.

“Where did you come by this?” Oro asked his smaller pupil, mostly about the water but partly about the bucket, which they definitely did not have when they left.

The little bug pulled out a page of their map and held it up to Oro. They had to hold it in front of their face and leaned back so could see it properly, with only their pale horns and small black hands visible around it. Surprisingly, it was a map of Kingdom’s Edge, although there was no Stag Station there that he knew of.

They held the map from its top edge with one hand, felt around for a red pin they’d place down, and tapped it once they found it.

Oro snorted, then actually barked out a laugh as he envisioned the bold little bug barging into the Colosseum of Fools the way they’d crashed into his hut, dashing between flabbergasted fools, and ransacking the gladiators’ pit to gather water from its spring before rushing out again.

Suddenly his smaller pupil’s head snapped to stare at Bramble, and Oro followed their gaze.

To his amazement, their bandages seemed mostly dried, as if their shell had absorbed the hot spring water like a weirdly stiff sponge. But more than that, they were enveloped by a soft white glow, and as he watched he saw bursts of light flash around them; he was the opposite of an expert in magic, but even he knew the telltale signs of soul magic.

Dim sounds came to them as if from far away. What kind, Bramble couldn’t tell or care. They heard, and they seized on that, struggling to hold onto their consciousness like they’d try to stop water from flowing out of their cupped hands. They focused, and then they Focused, and their grip on awareness strengthened.

Pain swept through their body, a strong wave of it crashing into their shell. Agony throbbed near their third horn. It felt like a great hopper was leaping up and slamming itself onto their head over and over and over again.

Their head… their head! Bramble’s ragged breathing quickened. Something was in their head. They’d felt it, freshly, not long ago. Too long ago. It had been there _far too long_. Something broke through their shell and clawed its way into their mind. It broke into their very thoughts and wormed its way through their lonely dreams and carved out tunnels for the sticky orange _things_ that crammed into their head. It stole their body, stole their skills, stole their everything, and turned it all against the sane world like Bramble was nothing more than its handpuppet.

It was there, it was in their head, the Infection was there, it…

From across an ocean of pain a voice said, “You’re safe, Bramble. We’re here.”

The voice was familiar and reassuring, and it sliced through their fears. Sometimes Bramble wondered what they’d sound like, if they had a voice. A voice seemed like a nice thing to have. Why weren’t they allowed to have one?

Wait. Even through their delirium, Bramble realized they were only truly familiar with one particular voice. Was that Oro? Was Oro there? How had he found them? Bramble couldn’t recall what brought them to the bench, or even how the Infection had… claimed them. But they did know it felt like they spent ages struggling to simply survive after plummeting into Ancient Basin, and they’d almost resigned themself to a very grim fate. Despite their grievous injuries, giddiness bubbled up above the haze of pain as they realized they were going to get out of there alive.

Bramble opened their eyes. Clamped them shut again; the dim light seemed to stab through their sockets and a shimmering aura pulsated across their vision. Cautiously, stubbornly, Bramble tried again, opening their eyes just a tad. One of their eyes only saw darkness, but as they squinted with the other eye Bramble saw their teacher, and a much smaller bug beside him, with two upswept horns and a shell as pale as their own. That was enough looking, they’d seen what they needed to see.

They recognized that little bug- that was one of their siblings! It felt like something smashed their recent memories with a club, but some images manage to stand out in their mind. Their sibling had attacked the lightseeds as they swarmed Bramble, and stayed with Bramble when the Infection discarded them, even though the Infection had fought them with Bramble’s body.

It was incredible, seeing another one like them free from the grasping darkness of Abyss. It lifted a guilty weight from their shoulders, knowing that they had at least one living sibling. That when they escaped the pit of bodies, they hadn’t condemned all the other survivors to rot beyond the notice of the world. Bramble knew there wasn’t much they could have done for the countless vessels they left behind, but they were one of the oldest. Nagging guilt told them they should have done _something_ for the younger ones, not just fled through the first passage they stumbled upon and raced through it like the dark sea was rising behind them. Their first memories were of a vast, empty cavern dotted with looming black eggs and their own few hatchmates, before that cavern filled up with more and more siblings until the void itself was choking on their sheer numbers.

So many lost…

“Bramble. You’re safe.” Oro’s voice came again, before they could get lost in their own dazed head. “Once again, I’ve had to clean up your mess. Your many wounds are bandaged, and since you can evidently hear me now, I believe

Were they hearing things, or did his voice hitch?

Feeling calm- well, not truly calm, but as close to calm as possible with their body so ravaged- Bramble let out a slow breath. They let their head loll slightly onto its side against Oro’s arm into a less painful position. The world was darkening; their body tried to nudge their brain back into unconsciousness so their body could get back to the business of saving energy and healing. But before that could happen, Oro said with exasperation,

“Bramble, move your head, my arm will fall asleep if you lie on it like that.”

They did no such thing.

“Move, or I’ll yank my arm away.” Oro warned.

Bramble didn’t move.

And neither did Oro.

Bramble slipped back into dreamless and painless sleep, feeling very smug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bramble, half out of it: Ha, the grumpy bastard DOES care!
> 
> This is the last chapter that focuses solely on Oro and Bramble, but they will appear in later chapters, they'll just be sharing the spotlight with the larger Nailmasters & vessels & Hornet ensemble.
> 
> I actually wrote most of this chapter before I wrote any of chapters 1 or 2, aside from the ending section. The first portion of this chapter is based on my own first battle with Broken Vessel, like fortunately unlike Ghost I knew that the boss wasn't going to get back up again but it was a painful fight nonetheless. Even knowing how it all goes down, every time I find BV in another playthrough I always try to destroy as many lightseeds, and every time BV collapses and reaches out for Ghost I always try to stand by them and look down because the game won't let me reach back.
> 
> When I was writing this chapter I did some research whether or not bugs can heal from holes in their exoskeletons, and while I didn't hear anything about actual gaping wounds I did learn that for very deep cuts a clot will form in their softer and more flexible "endocuticle" and eventually scar up on the inside of their exoskeleton. For this story I'm assuming that vessel masks are especially thick exocuticle and underneath that is a thinner black layer of endocuticle. For general bug medicine, shell paste is a kind of ointment or plaster or whatever that can fill in gouges in the exocuticle, but if a wound reaches down to the endocuticle or their insides then shell paste could actually harm those softer parts and they have to stick with bandaging it until it can scar on its own. Fortunately, lifeblood can add some extra protection and strength to a bug's body, and magical hot spring water can give them the energy to heal minor wounds, or the soul to focus on healing larger ones. So Bramble still has a long and likely miserable road ahead of them, but they're going to be okay in the end.  
> (source on bug bio: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/insects-can-patch-their-broken-bones)
> 
> I wish I could say that chapter 4 of this fic/chapter 1 of the Mato & Ghost stuff would be out quickly but uh, I have over 1,000 words of chapter 2 and chapter 3 each for Mato & Ghost but... no words yet for chapter 1. Whoops. But hopefully that means that when I do have chapter 1 finished, I'll be able to post chapters 2 and 3 not long after. Maybe when I get to Sheo & GV I'll be able to write things in order, but as it stands I mostly have to write ideas as they come to me and then fill in gaps to connect the plot dots, or the ideas that come to me won't wait for me to reach them in chronological order


End file.
